Ever aware that someone downstairs might glimpse her face if she wasn't careful, Franny stepped back from the doorway to allow him entry. When he had
stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, she relaxed slightly. But only slightly. "What do you want, Chase?"
In answer, he stepped to her bureau and plunked down a stack of gold pieces. She didn't need to count them to know they stood five deep. As he turned to regard her, he arched one dark eyebrow. "The same thing I wanted from the first, you."
Folding her arms, Franny spun away. "I asked you to stay away from me. If you want to play games, find someone who knows the rules. I have enough trouble following my own."
"Your rules stink," he shot back. "From here on out, you're going to start observing a different set, namely mine."
"Go away," she said weakly.
"Only if you come with me."
"I can't do that, and you know it. I have a family who depends on me. I—"
"Let me worry about your family."
"You?"
"That's a husband's job."
Franny could only stare at him, quite sure she hadn't heard him correctly.
"You're going to marry me," he inserted gently. "We can take care of it today, or you can put me off until later. I don't care which. But from this moment on, you will no longer sell your wares in this hellhole to support your family. No ifs, ands, or buts."
Stiffening her spine, Franny forced herself to meet his gaze. "What do you take me for, a fool? Since learning about my family, you haven't darkened my doorstep."
"You don't have a doorstep. That's one of the things I intend to rectify."
She opted to pretend he hadn't said that. "Now, here you are, suddenly demanding I marry you?"
"That's right."
"I'm sorry. But I know how that fairy tale always ends." Gazing at his burnished features, she decided that his Comanche heritage had never been more apparent than now, in the way he stood, in the leashed strength of his body, in the bold way he met her accusing stare. There was a wildness in him she couldn't ignore, bred into him by blood. She couldn't help but fear that the wildness made him impetuous, that what he decided to do on the spur of the moment today might become ashes on the wind tomorrow. "You may tell yourself right now that what I am doesn't matter to you," she said gently, "but a few months down the road, you'd wake up to reality."
"Reality being?"
"That I'm a whore!" she cried shakily. "Once a whore, always a whore, Chase. There is no changing that. I appreciate your philanthropic bent, but the day would come when you'd look into the faces of other men in this town and wonder how many of them had been with your wife. The answer would probably be dozens. Knowing that would eat at you until you detested the sight of me."
Moving so quickly she couldn't react, he closed the space between them and made a fist in the bodice of her dress. Franny felt the anger emanating from his body and knew he was mere inches from tearing her clothing off of her. "Once a whore, always a whore? Is that engraved somewhere on your flesh, Franny? Some sort of indelible mark that brands you? That's bullshit. You can walk away from this life. All you have to do is turn your back on it. And, by God, that's exactly what you're going to do. With me. As my wife. There won't be any looking back, not on my part. It goes against everything I was ever taught."
The sting of tears washed over Franny's eyes.
"You're a beautiful woman, that's what you are," he whispered raggedly. "Any man would be proud to have you as his wife, to bear his children."
"No." Her protest rang out thin and tremulous. "No man in his right mind, at any rate."
"I would, and in this instance, how I feel is all that counts."
"No. How I feel counts as well. I can't gamble the lives of eight people on pretty promises, no matter how sincerely you might mean them now. If I gave up this job, someone else would move in to take my place. If things didn't work out between you and me, which they probably wouldn't, I'd have to go elsewhere to find another position and then build up an entirely new clientele. Meanwhile my family would have to suffer the consequences. I can't take that risk, no matter how much I might wish I could."
"Life is full of risks, Franny. You have to trust me."
Recalling her recent vow not to let him make her believe in foolish dreams, she said, "No, I don't have to trust you, or anyone else for that matter. And I won't. I can't. It's too big a gamble, and the stakes are way too high."
"I guess that means I'll have to prove myself to you, doesn't it?"
"And how do you hope to accomplish that?"
"By spending time with you. Once you get to know me a little better, you'll realize I don't make pretty promises unless they're ones I can keep. The only risks involved here are inside your head."
"I can't spend that much time with you. I have a job, remember?"
He hooked a thumb toward the bureau. "That fifty dollars covers what you would earn tonight. Grab your bonnet. Let's go for a walk."
Never in all Franny's life had she wanted so badly to say yes. "I can't do that."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because, I told you. My family counts on the money I earn from this job. If I allow you to monopolize my time, I'll lose all my regular customers."
That familiar glint of determination crept into his dark blue eyes. "Don't fight me on this, Franny. If you do, I won't play fair, and in the end, you'll lose."
"Fair or foul, that's entirely up to you, I suppose. I only know what I must do."
"That's debatable."
"To your way of thinking, perhaps. But that's beside the point."
"Really? And if I disagree?"
"That's your problem."
"Not if I choose to argue my case in your mother's parlor the next time you go home for a visit."
Franny felt the blood drain from her face. "You wouldn't."
"Try me."
"That'd be despicable. If she learned the truth, it would break her heart."
"Then humor me so she won't learn the truth." "You'd actually resort to blackmail to get your way?" "Like you said, I'm despicable." "And you actually believe that with this sort of behavior, you can win my trust?"
His mouth slanted into one of those dazzling smiles. "Quite a charmer, aren't I?" Inclining his head toward her privacy screen, he said, "Get your bonnet."
12
That afternoon was the beginning of a very expensive courtship. Always with fifty dollars in hand, Chase began coming to collect Franny from the saloon far earlier in the evenings. He took her for walks. They picnicked along Shallows Creek. Sometimes they went riding. Once he even accompanied her home to visit her family and attend the circus that was being held in Grants Pass. On that occasion, he was wonderfully patient with Jason, which earned him Mary Graham's favor.
Franny knew it was his aim to make her see how much she was missing and want the life they could have together. And he was more successful in that than she dared to reveal. The yearning he kindled within her was more frightening than anything else she had ever experienced. She was convinced it would end in heartache. How else could it end? Chase might pretend not to care about her past. But no man could pretend forever. Sooner or later, he would turn away from her. It was as inevitable as the stars coming out on a cloudless night.
Only he didn't turn away, and the days swept past, taking them deep into July and the lazy heat of summer. Franny tried to hold herself apart from Chase. She truly did. But Chase wasn't easy to evade, not even for an expert like herself, well practiced at escaping into fantasy.
As she had sensed from the beginning, Chase wasn't a man to allow a woman to hold herself aloof from him. Little by little, he chipped away at the walls she had erected around herself, delving into her deepest secrets, forcing her to lay bare emotions she had never revealed to anyone.
One evening after attending the circus in Grants Pass, he caught her off guard by saying, "It's such a shame about Jason. He's such a perfect child i
n every other way. Handsome, beautifully proportioned. What a cruel joke of nature for him to be born with a flawed mind."
Before she thought, Franny replied, "But he wasn't born that way."
The instant she spoke she realized he had baited her. They were just approaching Shallows Creek, and to cover her discomfiture, Franny hurried on ahead. Spying a large boulder on the sandy bank, she went to lean against it. Pretending to enjoy the starlit sky and the summer night, she smiled nervously. "It's lovely out here. Now I'm glad you asked me to come."
In truth, the invitation had been more an ultimatum, but Franny could see little to be gained by arguing the point. Chase would have his way. If she had learned nothing else about him these last weeks, she had learned that. Here lately, though, the thought filled her with dread. She had begun to suspect he would win in the end, that she would eventually marry him, not because she felt it was wise, but because he would maneuver her into a corner and allow her no choice. He had a ruthless streak when it suited him.
Her nerves leaped when he drew up beside her and leaned against the boulder. Dressed all in black, which seemed to be his favored attire, he looked sinister and impossibly large in the shadows. Pale moonlight glanced off his sharply bridged nose and squared jaw. His dark hair caught the illumination in shimmers that winked out and reappeared with each motion of his head. Broad shoulders, powerful yet lean legs that seemed to stretch forever, muscular arms that could offer a woman solace or become her worst nightmare, depending upon his whim.
Franny toyed nervously with a button on her bodice, acutely aware of the man beside her and his intent regard. She could almost feel the net closing over her, almost predict his next move.
"That's right. I had nearly forgotten. Jason wasn't born with his affliction, was he? Measles, didn't your mother say?"
There it was, the subject she had known he would circle back to eventually. She was only surprised he had waited this long. Stupid, so stupid. Why had she opened herself up for this? It should be a simple matter of watching her tongue. But around Chase, with him constantly waiting for her to make a slip, it was almost impossible never to make one.
"Yet you take the blame for his idiocy? Measles sort of strike at random. Don't they? How could a person be held accountable for someone else's catching them?"
Electrified and feeling panicky, Franny pushed away from the boulder. At this point in the stream there was a bend, and the water eddied against an outcropping of stone that impeded its rush. She walked to the lapping edge of the still pool. "Oh, look. Minnows."
Watching her, Chase's heart broke a little. He knew Franny blamed herself for Jason's affliction, just as she assumed the responsibility for her mother's blindness. He had known that since the first day he had visited her home and met her family. She had alluded to her feelings of guilt then, but had carefully avoided the subject since.
He knew it was merciless of him to press her. The very way she stood betrayed her reluctance to discuss it, and there was no missing the nervous, almost frenetic plucking of her fingers at her dress. He had a feeling there was a whole lot more roiling beneath the surface than even Franny realized.
"What happened, Franny? Did you come down sick first, or what?"
God, how he hated himself for being so relentless. But he had to be. The more layers he peeled away from Franny, the more she fascinated him. With her, little was as it seemed on the surface.
"It wasn't a simple matter of my getting sick first," she finally admitted in a thin, quavery voice. "It was my fault, and afterward he was never right again."
Her fault? There it was again, an admission of guilt for something she couldn't possibly have caused. Chase stared at her slender back, now held so rigidly straight, as if in anticipation of a physical blow. How could she possibly hold herself to blame for an illness? It made no sense. Absolutely none. But there was no doubt it made perfect sense to her.
"How was it your fault, honey?"
"I brought—" Her voice turned shrill and cracked. He saw her take a deep breath before trying again. "I brought them home. The measles. I brought them home to everyone. It was because of me they all got sick."
Chase closed his eyes for a moment. He and Indigo had caught the measles as children and suffered no ill effects, but to this day he could recall how frantic his mother had been. In some cases, the disease was treacherous, leaving its victims blind, sometimes deaf. And in the very young, the raging fevers sometimes destroyed the mind. But to be blamed for infecting one's family because you caught them first? It was madness.
Before he considered the impact on her, he swore and said, "How in hell can you blame yourself for giving everybody the measles, for Christ's sake?"
She jerked as if he had slapped her. "Because, just because."
Chase wasn't willing to settle for that as an answer. "Bullshit to just because. The disease strikes at random. If you're blaming yourself for that, it's crazy."
She whirled to face him. In the wash of moonlight, her eyes were huge splashes of darkness in contrast to her pallor. Her mouth twisted and quivered as she strove to form words that tangled in her throat and erupted as incoherent little blurps of sound.
"An . . . an epidemic," she finally managed. "A measles epidemic. Jason was just a baby."
"You can't be held responsible for an epidemic, honey."
"Yes."
In her eyes, he saw a world of pain. He yearned to go to her, to draw her into his arms, to hold her so nothing else could ever hurt her. But he knew she wasn't ready for that and would panic if he tried.
"I started it," she blurted. "The epidemic? I was the one who spread the disease."
Chase circled that, much as he might have a coiled snake, uncertain of his next move, fearful of making the wrong one. "Can you explain that for me, how you were responsible?"
"What's to explain? And besides, I can tell by your tone that you're sneering. You don't understand at all."
She had him there. He was sneering, and he sure as hell didn't understand. "Well, explain it so I can." He threw up his hands. "I'm sorry. But where I come from, sickness chooses its victims. It's nobody's fault. I can't comprehend how it was different in your family's case."
Still rigid with tension, she rubbed at her temples then spun away as if she couldn't bear looking at him. "I attended the academy in Jacksonville back then. My parents could barely afford the tuition, and I really didn't want to be away from home, but they insisted because they wanted me to have the best education possible."
Obviously entrapped in the memories, her voice took on a faraway tone, and she paced aimlessly around him, stopping to nudge a rock with her toe, then moving on to touch the shiny leaves of a drooping laurel limb.
"I was a headstrong child," she murmured.
Chase smiled sadly at that revelation, for it was no news to him. She was equally headstrong as an adult. No one knew that better than he.
"I resented their sending me away to school. I was horribly homesick during the week, and every weekend when Papa came to fetch me home for a visit, I begged not to go back. They turned a deaf ear, and I grew rebellious. Nothing serious. I was only twelve, so my transgressions were harmless enough." She took another deep breath. "Only in the end, they weren't harmless after all."
Chase sensed that she was lost in the past and didn't risk speaking.
"There was this family who lived at the outskirts of Jacksonville by the name of Hobbs. The father was a heavy drinker, and the mother had an unsavory reputation. One day when I sneaked away from the academy, I met their daughter, Trina, and we became fast friends. When my parents learned of it, they were concerned and forbade me to associate with her. Not because she was a bad girl, but because they feared I might come to harm. Her father was renowned for his drunken rages."
She ripped off a handful of laurel leaves and made a tight fist over them. When she unfurled her fingers, her expression revealed a pain that ran so deep Chase ached for her.
"
Resentful as I was, I didn't obey my parents and met with Trina every chance I got. One day she wasn't at our meeting place, and I went to her house to see what kept her. One of the younger children answered the door, and when I stepped inside, I could smell the sickness. Taking a page from my mother's book, I did what I knew to help." She lifted her hands in helpless appeal. "Unfortunately, I was far too inexperienced a nurse to recognize the symptoms or to know the risk I was taking. A few days later, Trina recovered, and she and I began meeting in secrecy again."
Chase sensed what was coming.
"When I started feeling poorly, I never even thought of those few short minutes I had spent inside the Hobbs house. I was scarcely there for any time at all!" She turned an agonized gaze toward him. "It was a Friday evening when the sickness struck me. Only at first I just felt cranky and a little flushed. Papa came to fetch me home, and I went, never dreaming I was coming down with an illness that would nearly kill my little brother and my mother."
"Oh, Franny."
Moonlight shimmered on the tears that welled in her eyes. "Everyone at the academy who wasn't already immune fell sick as well, and they took the sickness home to their families, too. The measles. It hit Jacksonville and Grants Pass with a vengeance, sparing only those who were immune. Not everyone suffered lasting effects. But in my family the disease was devastating."
A hard knot forming in his throat, Chase swallowed, hard. The sensation didn't go away. "Franny, it probably would have happened anyway. You can't—"
"Yes, I can. It was my fault. I disobeyed my parents. I went to the Hobbs house. I caught the measles and took them home to all the people I loved the most. How can I not blame myself for that?"
"You never intended any harm."
"Tell that to Jason," she shot back tremulously. "He was a bright baby. He was just learning to walk when it happened. Afterward he couldn't even hold his tongue in his mouth. Tell Jason I meant no harm, Chase. With my willfulness, I destroyed his life and made my mother go blind." She gave a shrill, wet laugh. "And what was worse, I finally got my wish. After that, Papa no longer sent me away to school. I stayed at home to take care of my mother and brothers and sisters while he worked trying to pay all the bills." Her small face twisted with pain. "He died trying to pay them."